The council’s main goal is to reach 500 Arab-led startups within 5 years.

In May 2016, with the launch of the Council, we published a comprehensive survey conducted with Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin and “New Wave Research”.

While we can detect changes taking place inthe Arab society which point to the maturity process, gaps in awareness and fear-based discrimination are still visible. The survey included 500 respondents, most of them in the ages of 25-34, residents of the Galilee, with education of up to 12 years.

About 40% of Arabs were exposed to the high-tech and entrepreneurship fields, compared to almost 90% of the Jews.

According to the survey, only 20% of Arabs personally know someone from the field - a troubling datum in light of the obvious relationship between personal knowledge and desire to work in the field. About half of the respondents supported focus on promoting high-tech industry and the entrepreneurial sector in the Arab society. In addition, the survey found that significant gaps - including status, age, gender and region (eg, the triangle compared to Galilee), status (eg, income and education) - have directly affected the aspirations of the respondents.

Ziyad Hanna to The Jerusalem Post:

“There are so many ideas and opportunities,there are some 3,000 Arab employees at Israeli hi-tech companies, though only a few have started their own businesses.

With our mentorship and help with a business plan and investors, we could reach our goal of 500 startups... Our role is “to bridge ideas and implementation.”